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Tag Archives: kids
life as lab
As a kid I witnessed attributes and played with them.
What would happen when I misbehaved?
life as laboratory I tried lying and
got caught. tried being super
nice to people I don’t know
I tried bullying (after I myself was bullied)
I tried kissing my friends (without their consent)
I tried doing chores without being asked
not doing chores
fighting with fists
reading a book from beginning to end
without stopping
writing a book (age eleven)
If an adult caught me experimenting this way
I risked being earmarked based on my behavior.
This was called judgment and came very easy to them.
I tried it…
I learned not to trust adults
very well
they let me feel
innocent
I was a little kid with a heart full of feeling and a head full of up to no good. They let me feel innocent and sent me to bed much too early. Though I hated it and cried and fell asleep to their laughter and songs, I guess you could say I understood.
family
when you cannot see your family very often, and you see them, in flesh and blood, and get to embrace them, and hug the little ones and ruffle their hair, and look into those innocent eyes, and listen to them tell you stories, and tell them yours, in turn… nothing else compares, no, nothing else compares.
1984.kids
July came along and nobody knew our names
the fireworks were popping
no one could see them
they peppered our ears
we checked the sky
the powder had ignited
the oxygen burned
the paper falling to ground
after dark
we saw the snakes flying
umbrellas of light
the stars draped by the tails
slowly we recognized
who we were
motionless
cars and voices
and our names being called
in the night
cars and voices and our names
being called
motionless
in the night
our names
being called
– KatYa, 2017
the opening is tbd…
byo latchkey
we were…
latchkey kids. made deaf beneath
the wall of sound
of the industry
of the landscape
in the head
in the head
we played arcade games
to recover and chewed bubble
gum and drew on ourselves
with ballpoint pens
dumb kids. not stupid just
contextually thin
lacking or without sense or
the means to make
sense
hungry for relevance
starved of context
ignorant of our rights
we no longer studied our
country’s constitution
in high school
we microwaved tv dinners
and rode our bikes into the
night with duran duran baking
our heads by transistor
radio
stressed kids. the trance-like induction
of environmental stressors fill
the internal auditorium
teeming life of feelings acid-washed
a sensitive study of self
unreleased
a sensitive study of self
unreleased
abbreviated from an lp to an ep
the world stops when the record store is closed
the opening is tbd
the opening is tbd
you are all invited
statistics will be gathered
statistics will be gathered
and fall upon us
with friends
with friends
new cokes slim jims leg warmers
byo latchkey
not getting it ness
I fell into my own fantasy as a keeper of the flame for the children new to fresh books books books. Even fantasies have antagonists and she was a beast, she related well to the kids what with her smiles and false promises. They wanted what she did not have, and fresh matte finish covers became less attractive as the eyes tend to follow the shiny dangler. So what? An asshole relates quite well to other orifices, I imagine, and cannot recuse themselves from toxic flushing, outlyers from anywhere life might thrive. I could only bring a few around to the treasures of reading, but we could proliferate from there. You know, kids tell other kids about a book and soon everyone is reading it. That was the best aspect of my fantasy. Funny how it used to be a reality, back in the Harry Potter days, the Chronicles of Narnia Days. These children were born with google roadmaps of life, and Marvel movies where once we had comic books. Maybe if I pulled the old trading card trick and attached sticks of bubble gum to the spine. Anything to greet them with language and keep them from falling into her world, the common unconscious of not getting-it-ness. Fighting for space. Craving intimacy. Technologically sound. Animals equipped with smart phones doing three quarters their mental work for them. Grades by emojis and trading in texts, subjugated to a subhuman comment thread without end. I don’t even consider her subjects of the same genus as we. I just see elephant seals fumbling about for dying, flopping fish. Mammals with computers and electric outlets. Mall grubbing video grabbers. Android celluloid.
